It always amazes me how many evangelical believers I talk to who seem to be uncertain about the role in which God intends scripture to play in the Christian’s life.  Time and time again, I encounter believers within the evangelical and charismatic movements who are convinced that we cannot speak of God in absolute terms. Most of these believers have had some form of experience of God and go to churches who would claim to hold scripture in a traditional evangelical sense. That is, that scripture is the word of God, it is the final authority in all matters of faith and practice.

Tonight I have been reading Calvin’s Institutes, the following words struck me as having something to say to the modern evangelical believer who is somewhat confused about the role of Scripture within the Christian life. 

John Calvin

“God, the Maker of the world, is manifested to us in Scripture, and his true character expounded, so as to save us from wandering up and down, as in a labyrinth, in search of some doubtful deity.”

The scriptures are given to us with a clear purpose. That purpose is to manifest (to show us) God. It reveals the true and living God. The post modern mindset says ‘we cannot speak of God in absolute terms’ the Scriptures say ‘This is your God’. While we cannot know him fully we can know him certainly. The scriptures alone are the bedrock of divine revelation.

“If true religion is to beam upon us, our principle must be, that it is necessary to begin with heavenly teaching, and that it is impossible for any man to obtain even the minutest portion of right and sound doctrine without being a disciple of Scripture. Hence, the first step in true knowledge is taken, when we reverently embrace the testimony which God has been pleased therein to give of himself.”

Do we begin our Christian walk with ‘heavenly teaching’? or do we begin with earthly ideas? Do we have ‘true knowledge’ or do we have false instruction? has ‘true religion beamed upon us’? or have our hearts been darkened further by an eclipse of the Son due to the blockage of the light of God’s word? The answer to our questions will lie in our attitude and understanding of the place of scripture. Are we a ‘disciple’ of scripture? That is do we submit to it? Follow it? Seek to know it, understand it and love it? Have we ‘reverently embraced it’? If not it is doubtful whether we have truly ‘reverently embraced’ the one whom it reveals. The Lord God of Heaven and earth and Jesus Christ His only Son.